My one trip was with my old friend Dr. Ron Kolata. Ron and I go back some twelve years, and always have a great time. And Ron, his wife Pat, and I have a lot of fun outside of fishing.
That big early season front that came through last weekend spoiled our initial plans of fishing on Monday. Then, as is always the case, it blew most of the week, even though the weather folks said it wouldn't to start with. I think all of us in the fishing biz new better. So, postponement after postponement landed us on Thursday for our trip. We still had a pretty brisk breeze most of the day!
We had an outgoing tide with a dead low around 12:30 PM. To be frank, it's a tide I don't much like to fish. But, it is what it is. We were about out of days to fish, so it was do or die. Ron was at the dock right on time, and after chatting with he and his wife Pat, we headed off into the breaking dawn.
We headed to Kiesel's flat, where bait has been good for some time. J.T. Sanders, a recently retired guide and friend, was already there, and said the bait was good. We set up shop nearby and went to work. It took a little bit to get the bait going, but the bait was beautiful, and we got plenty. And, in the time we'd taken to get bait, the water had dropped noticeably.
We headed to our first stop in search of redfish. The spot has been rich with them for the last couple of months. But, on this day they were having nothing to do with us. Even the catfish weren't biting. We moved on.
I headed north to an area of flats that usually has redfish somewhere on it. You just have to find them. And, man! The redfish were everywhere. I thought we'd found the promised land, and were going to have another big redfish day. But, the fish had other ideas. We threw live shiners and cut pinfish at them, and they just ignored our offerings except for one fish that picked up a cut pinfish and came to the top with it, and then let it go.
Frustrated, I decided to throw spoons at them since they wouldn't eat natural baits. The first cast was smacked immediately, but no hookup. It got smacked three more times while I reeled it in. Upon inspection the weed guard was bend down and off to the side. No question it was the reds smacking it. Every cast got more hits without hookups. I tied a spoon on for Ron. He also had numerous hits without a hookup. It was like they were just trying to kill something, rather than eat it. Finally, obvious the fish weren't going to eat, we moved on.
Next was a snook stop. The place was full of snook. We saw many, some as large as 4 ft. But, it was the same thing. We couldn't get them to touch a bait. We had a few shiners scaled, but never felt it. After working the area well it was now around ten o'clock. Our tide was going to go flat at around noon. It was time for a change of strategy. We went trout fishing.
We were nearing the low tide, and after the second cold front of the year, I decided a winter pothole might be the ticket. Boy, was I right on that one. Ron and I were on trout from the first cast. We caught them on live shiners and Exude RT Slugs. The fish didn't seem to care. The one caveat was that they ate quickest if the bait was moving. So, we let them lay for a minute and then reeled them in some. That was the ticket. Over the last two hours of our trip we caught tons of trout, ladyfish, a redfish, and both species of catfish on both bait and lures. We just had a blast, and brought home a couple of limits of trout just before the season ends.
Finally, around 12:30, it was over as predicted. It was time to head to the Waterfront for lunch. We both had their yellow fin tuna salad sub. Awesome!
It was a great day. Even though we didn't catch those big reds, it was cool seeing them all over the place. Same for the snook. A great trout bite was the icing on the cake.